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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5563037" data-attributes="member: 2067">I'd hesitate to say that. Lots of video games have a very low "lethality" (anything with a save point; anything with a quick re-spawn)...they're not made so you can loose, they're made so you can keep playing.True, but what happens when you die in Diablo?You re-spawn, and try again, as if nothing happened.That's not a very dramatic punishment for death. It rewards luck, skill, and ability, sure, but it rewards patience and dedication even more than that. It's about the time you invest in it. That's not very possible in any tabletop game -- you can't really just re-start and try again, in part because you play it with people, in part because tabletop games are made in discrete play chunks, with a beginning and an ending designed to take place over the course of a couple of hours. Once you die in Diablo, you go try again. Once you loose in Poker, you go do something else (at least until later that day). I'd agree that RPGs need to play to their strengths. Though I don't think "levels are earned" and "narrative play" are necessarily incompatible. Instead of seeing level advancement as a parallel to the narrative, see it as one type of advancing your character. You gain more abilities (class powers/feats/whatever), more powerful abilities (levels), and affect the storyline (Lets call these things Victories?), all of which are measured in different ways. Your "more powerful abilities" are perhaps fewer, more far between, and more potent.It's not something I'm really advocating at the moment, it's just something I think is an interesting idea. If the response to "Death is too common!" is to say "Death is supposed to be rare in our narrative game!", then I think the real work that needs to be done to make happy those into the game end of things is to quantify that narrative. Make it so there are actual rules in place for fail or succeed at a story. That'll give real teeth to the idea that there are plot penalties, even if there are not character penalties. I think that's a worthy thing for D&D to develop.</blockquote>

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